Earlier this month, we recognized The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) with an Innovator Award in the Best Use of New Mediacategory for its “Coming Out for Equality” Facebook application which allowed supporters of equality to use social media to express their support for the rights of LGBT Americans and raise awareness around National Coming Out Day.

Their Facebook app was wildly successful. Just check out these stats

12,000+ new followers on HRC’s Facebook page in two days;

125,000 people donated their Facebook status for equality, which resulted in ~16.3 million newsfeed impressions;

While Facebook apps aren’t right for every organization or campaign, the core message is: instead of reinventing the wheel, make some innovative tweaks to your long-standing and successful campaigns. (They are long-standing and successful campaigns for a reason right? No need to fix what ain’t broke.) Tie in social media to empower your constituents, offer new forms of engagement and more by taking advantage of the new media available to you. With a few updates, good to great is possible – and I think we’d all agree that HRC’s results are nothing shy of great.

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